Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me first thank Senator Blumenthal for bringing us together on the floor this afternoon and also Senator Schiff for his excellent statement on this issue, which is so timely and important. I speak to this issue in the usual, personal position. My State, my home State of Illinois--the State that I am elected to represent in the Senate, a State that I love--is under siege by this administration. If you think I am exaggerating, imagine, if you will, for a moment a President who has decided to declare that your town, your State is somehow on his list to face punitive action by the delegation of military force. That is what is happening in Illinois. That is what is happening in Chicago. This last Saturday, we had the No Kings rallies across the United States. Millions of Americans took the time to peacefully protest this administration's policies. In Chicago, I cannot tell you the number of people in the crowd because no one is sure. I am sure it was over 100,000. My wife and I looked at that sea of people at the Petrillo band shell in Grant Park and thought, how many people could possibly be here? They were there, and they marched peacefully, nonviolently, to really use their constitutional rights to express themselves. The President has designated Chicago as uninhabitable, unlivable, violent. It is just a fraud and a lie. It is not true. Does Chicago have its problems? You bet it does. So does a city in the State of California or Connecticut or even Utah. Each of our cities has its challenges. There will always be someone who will break the law and disappoint you. But to argue that the city is dangerous and needs to be occupied by National Guard troops from Illinois and the State of Texas is completely, completely wrong. I recall that the President was right in one respect. Two weeks ago, there were people running through the streets of Chicago--53,000 of them, as a matter of fact, in the Chicago Marathon and thousands of others who came there to witness and cheer them on. It was a beautiful scene on a Sunday morning and afternoon in the city of Chicago, and it certainly didn't tell the story that President Trump and others are trying to tell about the city. Just last week, President Trump called the Insurrection Act ``the strongest power a President has.'' President Trump is known for exaggerating, but this time, he wasn't. In his hands--the hands of a man who wants to be King, who nearly every day undermines checks and balances in the Constitution--the Insurrection Act as it stands today would serve as another tool for dangerous Executive overreach. Since its enactment in the 1800s, Presidents of both parties have relied on the Insurrection Act selectively, and, as we have discovered over time, the law is dangerously outdated, vague, and vulnerable to abuse if wielded by a President who refuses to act in good faith. President Trump talks frequently about the so-called enemy within in the United States. He has no qualms about spreading baseless lies about a rebellion or an emergency in American cities to justify his abuse of power. Whether it is unleashing Federal agents to detain people based on the color of their skin in Chicago or improperly deploying marines for civil law enforcement in Los Angeles, you see example after example. The Founders of this Nation designed the Constitution to protect generations of Americans from abuses unfolding before our eyes today. To prevent Presidents from using the military as a weapon of tyranny, the Framers of the Constitution constrained the role of the military in civilian affairs, gave Congress control over when the military may be deployed, and barred the Federal Government from usurping State powers. While the Insurrection Act gives the President greater authority to deploy the military within the United States, it was never meant to be used for the purpose President Trump is proposing. Congress must act to update this law to ensure it can only be used to safeguard the Nation, and I want to commend Senator Blumenthal for taking steps with legislation he has introduced along those lines. If you don't agree with me, listen to what Jack Goldsmith, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel under President Bush, wrote in the New York Times with Bob Bauer just this last Monday. He wrote: The Insurrection Act was written for a different century and a different conception of the presidency and presidential self-restraint. Listen to what experts at the libertarian think tank CATO said: The sweeping language of the Act makes it a potentially decisive and lethal tool in the hands of an authoritarian chief executive. Earlier this month, the Republican Governor of Oklahoma criticized the deployment of Texas Guard troops to Illinois as a violation of ``States' rights.'' He went on to say further--to rightly call out the hypocrisy of his own Republican Party. Imagine the outrage, this Governor of Oklahoma said, if Governor ``Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.'' I can imagine it, and you can too. Republican Senators who are quiet about the President's misuse of his office and misuse of power would not be quiet if their own State and their own towns were at stake in this debate. The reform bill my colleague from Connecticut has introduced preserves Presidential discretion to respond to genuine crisis while ensuring accountability and oversight and reducing the risk of abuse. I don't exaggerate when I tell you that, having spent my life in government service, I am more worried now than I have ever been about the fate of this Republic. But I see the possibility of the use of the Insurrection Act by this President. I worry that our democracy will struggle to survive. I believe so dearly in this country that I have taken an oath willingly and happily to uphold its Constitution. I have turned to military leaders under President's Trump first term that I respected, like General Milley, and asked him basic questions such as: Given a choice, are you going to take your orders from the Commander in Chief or from the Constitution? He said: Always the Constitution. We have a lot at stake now in this national debate. It is about a lot more than who gets the morning headline and who wins the next election. What is at stake is the future of our democracy, and this Insurrection Act can be misused by this President in ways unimaginable. We have seen evidence of it already in my State of Illinois and the city of Chicago. I thank the Senator from Connecticut for leading us in this conversation that must continue. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Anne-Leigh Gaylord Moe to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Judge Moe is another example of President Trump's focus on nominating jurists who rule in favor in big business and conservative special interests, instead of serving as a neutral arbiter on the bench. In a case involving a Florida law that makes it harder for plaintiffs to prove the amount of damages in a personal injury or wrongful death action, Judge Moe ruled in favor of defendants who sought to apply this law retroactively, despite the clear language of the law stating otherwise. Her explanation for why she ignored the clear language of the statute strains credulity. Republicans also claimed that Biden nominees who did not pass the Kennedy bar exam were not fit to serve on the Federal bench. When asked where the Privileges and Immunities Clause is in the Constitution, Judge Moe could not correctly answer the question, nor could she answer what the Privileges and Immunities Clause does. And when asked about the Privileges or Immunities Clause, she similarly could not recall which amendment it is in, nor could she explain what it does. As I have said many times before, there cannot be one standard for Democrats and one for Republicans. While the Kennedy bar exam is daunting for many nominees, if failing to answer questions for Biden nominees is disqualifying, the same should be said for Trump nominees. I will oppose Judge Moe's nomination. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, through the Chair, I want to thank the Senator from Oregon for his leadership in bringing this issue before us. We have something in common. Both of our States are facing militarization from the Federal level of government. Not only in Chicago--the President argues that the city is unsafe. I watched this last Saturday as 100,000 people gathered for the No Kings rally and parade--a peaceful, nonviolent gathering of Americans expressing their constitutional feelings and right to express themselves in this Republic. I know that you are facing the same threat in the State of Oregon, and recent court decisions seem to suggest that there is more time in the courtroom ahead. I would just say to the Senator from Oregon, thank you for leading this conversation. There are so many aspects of this Presidency that you could address, and I would like you to address, if you will, this militarization issue. We have carefully crafted in our existing laws prohibition against the use of military force for law enforcement. It makes sense on its face because these men and women--as good as they are--in the National Guard units around our country are not trained primarily in law enforcement. Theirs is a much different type of training. Secondly, to overcome State and local sources of law enforcement is a major constitutional step, and yet this President has initiated it in my State of Illinois, in your State of Oregon, and in the State of California. Would you address this aspect of your comments this morning.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator from Oregon would yield for another question. Do you recall, as I do, how many times Candidate Trump and President Trump spoke before rallies supporting his cause and railed about the murderers, terrorists, rapists, criminally insane, and sexual predators who are coming across the border and threatening us? And his argument was it was that fear of criminal activity by them that warranted this Federal intervention in many States, including our own. I just wanted to give one example that is timely and tells a story. First, let me say that fewer than 30 percent of the people who are being detained by ICE--fewer than 30 percent--have any criminal conviction whatsoever. These people may be here out of status. For example, they came in on a student visa and stayed when they should have left, or came in here on a tourist visa and stayed when they should have left. But to brand these people that are being detained on the streets of Chicago, for example, as criminals--violent criminals, as the President described them--is totally unfair. I tell the story of a church that I visited just a few days ago in Chicago--Christ Lutheran Church on Wilson Avenue in the Albany section, which is a largely Hispanic section of the city of Chicago. The pastor of that church Tom Terrell told me that after his service, a few days before, it ended at noon. And as parishioners were leaving-- they walk home in the neighborhood as they do every Sunday--ICE arrived in an unmarked truck and stopped this gathering of his parishioners and started questioning them and asking them for identification papers. This is becoming common in Chicago. When others noticed it, they came to their front porches and out their front doors and started blowing whistles to let people know that ICE was in the neighborhood conducting this. ICE panicked, and as a result of it, threw down a tear gas canister in front of these people who had just come out of church and got in their unmarked vehicle and left. This kind of activity is far beyond protecting us from the most dangerous criminals who might have come across the border in times past. It is intimidation in an effort to have people so afraid that they will either not participate in the economy, that they will not be going to church, and many of them are afraid to send their kids to school. Where is this leading and why? I will tell you I think you shared what you said, the Senator from Oregon, my feelings that this is not the end of it. It is not a temporary thing. It is a long-term commitment by the President to militarize neighborhoods, particularly those in blue States and cities like Chicago. What is the purpose? Not just to spread fear but when the election comes, which is another few months away, of course, but when the election comes, to discourage people from voting in those neighborhoods, if not disqualify them. Does that sound like an outlandish idea, the President who will refuse to accept the fact that he lost an election? It doesn't to me, and it becomes a reality every time I come home. This President argues that there are dangers in the streets of Chicago. Two weeks ago, the streets were overrun by 53,000 people that didn't live in Chicago. It is called the Chicago Marathon, and they had 53,000 participants. This was a calm, peaceful, quiet, and great and happy day in the history of Chicago. And for him to characterize this as a criminal city and one that needs military occupation is totally unfair, and it doesn't reflect the reality. This past Saturday, as I mentioned, over 100,000 gathered without violent incident, a reminder that cities like that that are being besmirched by the President are still solid places to live--with their challenges and problems, of course--but beyond that, it certainly doesn't merit the military presence the President is suggesting. So I would ask the Senator from Oregon: Do you feel that there is a long-term plan to this militarization by the Presidency?

Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. First, I thank my colleague from Oregon for his endurance and determination in hanging in there. He is bringing up a critical issue and subject for America at a critical moment, but I would like to return to an issue we discussed this morning when I was visiting, and that is the issue of the militarization of our Federal Government and its impact on States like yours of Oregon and mine of Illinois. What I am finding as I read the newspaper accounts is that the ICE operation from the Department of Homeland Security in Illinois continues to intimidate people who live in the city, in their neighborhoods, and all around, and bring fear to parts of the city of Chicago. Little Village and Pilsen are the ones most well known.

Mr. DURBIN. It is a legitimate point. Will you yield for a question--

Mr. DURBIN.--for the Chair? The point I am trying to make is there are areas of the city of Chicago and I am sure in your State of Oregon where the intimidation factor has reached a point where people are worried about literally going to church, going to work, taking their kids to school. It is a genuine problem. Just last week, an individual took his child to daycare, left the motor running in his car and took the little toddler into daycare. He came out the door and was arrested and detained and removed from that scene, specifically, while the motor was still running in his car. That is the kind of thing that is happening. It isn't as if they are targeting criminals; they are going after people who look like they are Hispanic. There are many who live in our city, and I am glad to have them. They are wonderful people. I would like to ask, in your State, what kind of intimidation, if any, is taking place through this military operation of the President?

Mr. DURBIN. Or more.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator would yield?

Mr. DURBIN. Over the course of my service in the Senate, one of the things that I was proudest of and am still proud of was the formation of the so-called Gang of 8--four Republicans and four Democrats who sat down to write a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Senator McCain led the effort on the Republican side, and Senator Schumer joined me with others on the Democratic side. We produced a measure that had the support of business and labor and Democrats and Republicans. We brought it to the floor of the U.S. Senate and passed it with over 60 votes. It was a glorious day and a great celebration. What was it all about? It was all about the 11 million undocumented people in the United States coming forward and registering with this government who they are, where they live, and they pay a fine for coming to this country without documentation. They then don't automatically become citizens, but they are allowed to work. They wouldn't be deported, and they can live a normal life, paying their taxes and doing what people who are in this country do normally. It was an attempt to try to regularize the information, to account for the 11 million, and to say that was going to be an accounting, which would give us some stability in this country on the issue of immigration. The fact is, it would have done just that. Unfortunately, it was never taken up by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives. We passed it here in the Senate. It included the Dream Act, and it was a step forward. I contrast it today with what we are faced with: full-scale battles and war over immigration in cities across this country. It is unnecessary. There are ways to resolve this fairly, humanely, and in an American fashion. I hope the Senator from Oregon agrees with me. It is time for us to sit down and do this. Hiring more ICE agents is not going to resolve the issue of immigration. Having a law that is enforceable, rational, humane, and American in its nature is the best way, as far as I am concerned. I ask the Senator for his reaction.

Mr. DURBIN. I would like to just make one last comment, if I can--

Mr. DURBIN.--in the nature of a question. Just a few feet away from where we are in the Chamber is my Capitol office, and on my credenza behind my desk is my mother's naturalization certificate for all to see. I am a proud immigrant. She came to this country at the age of 2. Her mother did not speak English but brought three children on a boat from Germany to Baltimore and ultimately to Illinois, where I grew up and my mother spent her life. It was an indication of the American dream, as far as I am concerned. Her son not only got a government job but was elected to the Senate, so good things happen. But I think it is a story of immigration--a story that is repeated over and over again by families that come into this country, determined to succeed. It makes us a better nation and always has. Has the Senator run into that in the State of Oregon?

Mr. DURBIN. In the nature of a question, I ask the Senator from Oregon, is he aware of the fact that we have approximately 700 immigration judges facing that backlog you just described, and the Trump administration has dismissed 100 of them? So instead of adding more judges so we can expedite the hearings and resolve them, the opposite has been the case. Was the Senator aware of that?

Mr. DURBIN. It certainly is. I would also ask the Senator, when it comes to--

Mr. DURBIN. In the nature of a question, when it comes to the issue of due process, the question is whether or not we can, in this country, offer due process to the people who are asking for their fate to be resolved. That has been part of our Constitution applying not only to citizens but those who are in our country petitioning to become citizens. Does the Senator agree with me that due process is a critical part of our democracy?

Mr. DURBIN. We face this reality now with children. I just described it earlier. The question I would ask you is this--

Mr. DURBIN.--does the Senator believe that these unaccompanied children need to have humane treatment at all times? You told the story earlier of going down to the border and watching what happened under previous administrations. Would the Senator recount that story at this point?

Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator yield for another question? It would be my last question.

Mr. DURBIN. Is the Senator aware of the fact that 2 weeks ago ICE offered to children under the age of 18--and they were children--an option of a $2,400 reward if they would leave the country and go back to the country of their birth? Children were being asked to sign a contract to give up any claim to citizenship in the United States, and the $2,400 was available to an adult that they would identify in their country who would meet their airplane. With all of the trafficking that has been going on, it was a ridiculous idea to take children and ask them to make that decision and to give them a financial reward if they went along. Was the Senator aware of that?

Mr. DURBIN. That was the detail. I am going to yield the floor and thank the Senator.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) and the Senator from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) are necessarily absent.